Spore Hero is the Wii spin-off of Spore, developed by Maxis, in which the players focus on creativity and evolution using the unique controls of the Wii. The game was released on October 6, 2009.
Development
A Wii spinoff of the game had been mentioned by Will Wright several times, such as in his October 26, 2007 interview with The Guardian. Eventually, a spin-off under the title "Spore Hero", an adventure game built ground up for the Wii with a heavier focus on evolution, was announced as part of the 2009 lineup along with "Spore Hero Arena" and "Spore Galactic Adventures"" The first details of Spore Hero began to emerge when MTV's Totilo had an interview with designerLucy Bradshaw. In it she said that the team was taking a look at Wii Motion Plus for better motion sensitivity. On May 12, EA sent out their official press release for Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena. Several previews began to emerge later. At an event in Los Angeles, GameSpot got another look at Spore Hero. IGN and Gamezone also posted previews as part of their pre-E3 lineup. Spore Hero was on show at E3 2009 and at Comic-Con. In late July, Maxis conducted an interview with several of the major fansites. During it they revealed that one of the choices they made during development was to focus on the story-line of the game. This focus meant that they had to detract from the game's online capabilities.
Gameplay
There are two types of meteors: the blue one whose rocks give the player more DNA, and the red one whose rocks make most creatures go crazy. The creature, a Sporeling, starts as a small, blue, bipedal creature hatched from its egg in the blue meteor. Meejee the Striped Bird offers the creature a fruit, but it doesn't have a mouth. Littly shows the creature a nest, one of several scattered across the planet, where it hatched that resembles the sun, and where the creature can evolve itself. The evil Zarkhator, hatched from his egg in the red meteor, has used red rocks to corrupt almost every creature on the planet. The Sporeling must destroy every red rock. At the Creature Beach, they must have the final battle, so that Zarkhator can be evolved into a weaker creature. He gets laughed at by everyone, and doesn't cause any more harm to the planet. The Ancient Guardian needs 5 parts from each world. The Sage is the one who looks after the Guardian. He is an elderly Striped Bird who is good friends with the Yeti.
Reception
IGN rated Spore Hero 6.1 out of 10 in its review. Game Informer rated the game a 7/10.
